“Songs of U.S.,” a video series devoted to exploring the American songbook on the nation’s 250th birthday, will feature artists such as Amy Grant, Linda Perry, Grace Potter, Mickey Guyton, Samara Joy and Old Crow Medicine Show in both song and conversation about what these American tunes have meant to the country.
Other participants in the “Songs of U.S.” program include Joy Oladokun, Brittney Spencer, Matt Quinn of Mt. Joy, Corook, Tiny Habits, Trousdale, Chance Emerson and Raye Zaragoza. More are to be announced in the coming weeks. The artists involved are doing a mixture of classic covers and original songs along with interviews about how music affects the national character.
The video series, announced Tuesday, will be seen on Salt Lick Sessions’ YouTube channel and social platforms, with a launch featuring Amy Grant’s segments set for June 8. See a trailer for “Songs of U.S.,” below.
The series is an initiative of Salt Lick Incubator, a nonprofit artist support organization that emerged out of a grant from Amplify 250, which is part of the Hearthland Foundation’s projects centered around the United States’ 250th anniversary. The Salt Lick Artist Advisory Board includes Jon Batiste, Harvey Mason Jr., T Bone Burnett, Patrice Rushen, Alison Brown, Susan Tedeschi and Charlie Puth,.The Hearthland Foundation was formed by Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw.
The music-and-conversation series is described as “bringing together artists from across the American musical landscape to reinterpret songs that have shaped the country’s cultural identity — and to ask what belongs in the American songbook today.” It will pair “exclusive live performances with artist conversations exploring identity, protest, belonging, history and the evolving story of America through music. Across each artist rollout, participating musicians perform a traditional American song alongside a contemporary work they believe deserves within its evolving future.”
The announcement ironically comes right at a time when the nexus of national pride and music is in national headlines, with artists pulling out of the Trump-backed Freedom 250 concert series in Washington, D.C. that was intended to celebrate the nation’s birthday. Clearly, the artist list for Salt Lick’s video series suggests a more thoughtful and perhaps meaningfully patriotic approach.
“Music is one of our country’s most profound contributions to world culture. So as we close the chapter on the last 250 years of American history in this period of enormous discord and debate about who we are are want to be, we asked musicians from all walks of life to reinterpret a song from the canon of great American music,” said Roger Brown, founder of Salt Lick Incubator and former president of Berklee College of Music, in a statement.
“‘And the dreams that we dare to dream really do come true.’ Great American songs tell us so much about what we believe and what we want to believe about our country and ourselves,” said Roger Brown, the founder of Salt Lick Incubator in a statement. Brown is the former president of Berklee College of Music. “Hear a fresh take on who we are at this inflection point in American history as offered up by some of our most talented and thoughtful musicians — what dreams do they dare us to dream?”
An example of what to expect will come with Grant’s video segments premiering on June 8-9. On the first of those days, she’ll be seen singing James Taylor’s “Carolina in My Mind” and in conversation, followed the next day by her doing a recent single, “The 6th of January (Yasgur’s Farm),” a song bringing up different eras of American history — from slavery to Woodstock to the modern Capitol insurgency — that Variety described as one of 2026’s best protest songs.
On June 15-17, Potter will be seen in conversation around her cover of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” followed by her interpretation of a more contemporary American classic, Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” with a third and final segment having Potter perform her own “Main Street USA,” from the 2025 album “Trespasser.”
Brittney Spencer will be seen in segments unveiled June 22-24, singing her versions of “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and “The House That Built Me” along with her original “Bigger Than the Song.”
Samara Joy will raise her voice on video June 29-July 1, with renditions of “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most,” Duke Eillington’s “Le Sucrier Velours” and the Miles Davis Quintet-popularized “Stablemates.”
The series is obviously saving some big firepower for the Independence Day holiday, and that will come with Guyton doing John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” as well as her own anthem of nuanced patriotism, “All American,” in segments premiering July 2-4.
Other upcoming segments include Oldokun singing “Ain’t No Sunshine,” Tiny Habits performing “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Nia/Léa/Jordyn Trio doing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and Corook singing Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam.”
Gene Simmons of KISS and Otis Williams will also have interview segments as part of the series.
Added Brown, the founder, in an additional statement: “‘And the dreams that we dare to dream really do come true.’ Great American songs tell us so much about what we believe and what we want to believe about our country and ourselves,” said Roger Brown, the founder of Salt Lick Incubator in a statement. Brown is the former president of Berklee College of Music. “Hear a fresh take on who we are at this inflection point in American history as offered up by some of our most talented and thoughtful musicians — what dreams do they dare us to dream?”
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